Question

I am trying to open any arbitrary file using Intents. However, I get the ActivityNotFoundException for file types for which there are installed apps that can open them. In the source below, when file points to a PNG file, I get the “Complete action using” dialog. However, when I try to open an mp3, I get the exception. When I open Astro and click on the same mp3 file, I get the “Complete action using” dialog showing the installed MP3 players. How do I get the same dialog to show up from my code? The file location, extension, and MIME type all look correct when I inspect them from the debugger.

      String url = file.toURL().toString();
      String extension = MimeTypeMap.getFileExtensionFromUrl(url);
      String type = typeMap.getMimeTypeFromExtension(extension);
      mimeType.setText(type);
      boolean fileExists = file.exists();
      Intent viewIntent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW);
      viewIntent.setData(Uri.fromFile(file));
      viewIntent.setType(type);
      MainActivity.this.startActivity(viewIntent);

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The answer is that Intent.setType and Intent.setData are mutually exclusive. Calling one clears out the other. So calling setDataAndType is the fix.

Answer 1

Try this:

        Intent newIntent = new Intent();
        newIntent.setDataAndType(Uri.parse("file://"+filePath),mimeType);
        newIntent.setAction(Intent.ACTION_VIEW);
        try {

            startActivity(newIntent);

        } catch (android.content.ActivityNotFoundException e) {
            Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(), "No handler for this type of file.", 4000).show();
        }